A Doctor by any other name is still a Doctor
by million years ago
Summary: The thoughts of the crew of Serenity on their fugitive medic
1. Jayne

Jayne Cobb never liked Simon, though not for the reasons most would think. Sure he thought the doc was a prig who was going to bring all sorts of Alliance based trouble down on them and his sister was one crazy psycho who once carved Jayne's ruttin chest open. But that weren't the real reason.

Most men, and women, thought Jayne was an idiot. The dumb muscle good for nothing but killing and lifting heavy cargo. They didn't stop to think how if he were such a fool how had he lived out on the Border Planets for so long? Sure Jayne didn't have books smarts, but he wasn't stupid. He lived on his instincts, the instincts that told him when the other son of a bitch was about to draw, where to stick the knife to kill a man, or when the trap was about to be sprung and the bullets start flying. Those were the instincts that had kept Jayne alive and those same instincts told him that Simon Tam was more dangerous than any of them on Serenity. He had no idea why, the man couldn't shoot straight, couldn't fight for worth a damn. But deep down inside something about Simon Tam scared Jayne.


	2. Kaylee

Kaylee liked Simon, that much was obvious. Sure Kaylee liked most people, but she liked him more than most. She was honest enough to know that part of it was his good looks but she also liked who he was inside, that sweet kind man.

She knew he wasn't use to this life and that trying to help his little sister was hard. That was why she forgave him when he said things that hurt her. Most of the time Simon was just speaking without thinking, and knew why he'd hurt her and was sorry for it. If she was honest Kaylee was never really that upset those times, though she was often angry with him.

But there were other times when he'd say something, look up, see the hurt in her eyes and not understand. Sure he knew he'd hurt her and was sorry for it but he didn't understand why what he'd said was hurtful. It was these times that really upset her, because she worried that one day Simon might do something that broke her heart and not understand why.


	3. Zoe

Zoe didn't think much about Simon, most of her mind was taken up with Wash or whatever insanity the Captain was dragging them all into. But when she did she thought of his first day on Serenity. When Simon had asked if she'd kill him if ordered Zoe had meant it when she said she would. She was always a soldier and Mal was her commander, even if he was a captain now not a sergeant. She might have meant those words but she'd always had a slight feeling, a niggling sensation in the back of her head telling her that Simon Tam would be a lot harder to kill than he looked. So Zoe didn't think much about Simon but when she did she always put a hand on her gun.


	4. Wash'

Wash never thought much about Simon either. In truth Wash was a simple man, he loved Zoe and he loved flying, anything else in life could be greeted with a laugh and a joke; well almost anything. Not to say Wash didn't like Simon but he never spent much time thinking about the man, until the night Simon told him about how he rescued River from the Academy. It had been not long after the fight at Niska's Skyplex, Wash had been on the bridge while the rest of the crew slept. Simon had wandered up and they'd got talking. That was when Simon stopped making sense to Wash.

See Wash had laughed at Simon's blundering attempts at deception on Higgins Moon and the way he always put his foot in his mouth talking to Kaylee. And he just couldn't square that with a man who bluffed his way into a top secret Alliance facility with nothing more than a forged ident card, a stolen uniform and a stun grenade. So Simon didn't make sense to Wash and while he didn't mind not understanding the man he hadn't missed the way Zoe looked at the Doc, like he was threat. So Wash may have liked Simon, may have laughed and joked with him, but he wasn't sure he trusted him.


	5. Book

Shepard Book thought a lot about Simon, the brilliant young man willing to give up a future many would kill for to save his baby sister. But for many weeks when he thought of Simon his mind always went back to that first day when Kaylee lay on the deck with a bullet in her stomach and Simon had bargained with the Captain, bargained with Kaylee's life. Something about that moment had always troubled the Shepard, something beyond the obvious. It was only months later that he had realised what it was.

When he'd looked into Simon Tam's face that day there had been fear and desperation certainly but underneath it all a cold certainty. Book knew now that Simon had been perfectly prepared to stand there and watch Kaylee die. He would have regretted it but he would have done it. There were very few people in the verse with the will to do that but Simon Tam was one of them and that scared the Shepard. He knew what men with that iron will were capable of, after all he had been one of them once.


	6. Inara

Inara didn't know what to make of Simon. That was unusual for her. A companion was trained to always understand their clients, to give them what they wanted before they even knew they wanted it. To do that they had to read people. Inara thought she understood Simon the earnest nature, the desire to save people as a doctor, the determination to help River, all wrapped up in the stilted mannerism of a socially awkward Core bred rich boy. Inara thought she had Simon read until one Unification Day.

Mal and Zoe had drunk too much and were telling war stories; not the good ones. Inara had been ready to leave the conversation, until she had glanced up and seen Simon's face. There had been such pain there, as Mal talked of winter campaigns and piles of bodies and burning skies. It wasn't sadness she had realised, that natural reaction to the tragedy of war, it was something deeper. An empathetic horror combined with memories of suffering. Inara was older than she looked but she knew that even with Core tech Simon wasn't old enough to have fought in the war and he hadn't lived near enough to the warzones to know anything about it beyond Alliance news reels. So she didn't understand why, when Mal and Zoe became lost in those horrible memories, Simon Tam looked at them like he understood.


	7. Mal

Mal respected Simon. That would be a surprise to most, the two men argued and even fought from time to time. Mal respected Simon because he knew the man would do anything to protect his little sister. Mal would do anything to protect his crew so he could hardly fault Simon for thinking the same about his own flesh and blood. But that was also the reason Mal didn't trust Simon one inch.

Kayle had accused Mal of keeping Simon and River at a distance, of not letting them be part of the family that was Serenity, that was true. See Mal knew that if he had to Simon would let them any of them die to protect River, he had nearly done it the day Kaylee was shot. It had been the same when the Reavers had chased them after the bank job. Simon had been furious that River had been in danger, not even caring that if she hadn't been there, hadn't felt the Reavers coming, then Mal, Zoe and Jayne would all have died.

Mal also knew that one day Simon's determination to protect River at all costs would come head to head with Mal's will to protect the crew and, as Jayne had once said, that would be an interesting day.


	8. River I

River tried not to walk into other people's minds but she couldn't help it.

She walked through all their heads without even realising until she was in there, wandering through the strange landscape. They were all so very different from the confused mess of thoughts and feelings that made up her head. The clear cut simplicity of Jayne's mind, all straight edges and gun metal. Wash's mind was full of swirling winds and dancing clouds. Inara's mind, a labyrinth of silk and incense, built on a foundation of steel. Shepard Book's, iron walls building a fortress of faith.

She tried not to walk in their minds but she always did, even Simon's mind. But whenever she walked into Simon's mind she walked so carefully. Simon was her anchor. In that confusing sea of her thoughts… not her thoughts… other's thoughts…thoughts that belonged to no one... Simon was the beacon that guided her to shore. But when she was in his mind she could feel something, something that Simon was once… is now…would be… could be…would not be…could never be. Beneath all his thoughts (worrying about her, worrying about Kaylee, worrying about medical supplies, worrying about her) there was a slow deep pulse, like the breathing of a sleeping giant. It was part of Simon… but not… and somehow a part of her too… but not… and part of something else. And it was wonderful and terrible and brilliant and deadly.

River didn't know what it was but she was scared of waking it.


	9. River II

For a long time River had thought that she was imaging it, that slumbering strength she felt in the heart of her brother, that it was something pulled out of her own trauma and psychosis. River may have been mentally traumatised but she was still a genius, and aware that her capacity to logically process mental input was impaired. Then she had realised she wasn't the only one who felt it, though perhaps she was the only one who really knew what she they were feeling.

She could see it in the way Inara looked at Simon like he was a puzzle to be solved. The way when Wash laughed with Simon it rang just a little hollow. The way Zoe and Jayne tracked Simon's every move with hands just slightly closer to their weapons than they needed to be. The way Kaylee sometimes looked at him with desperate sadness, like she knew there was something wrong. The way Shepard Book looked at him with a strange measuring look, like he was weighing Simon's soul.

And most of all in the way Mal faced Simon. Mal never treated Simon like he was a soft handed Core rich-boy, he faced him like an equal, like a man worth fighting. Mal probably didn't even realise he was doing it but River knew why, it was because somehow Mal felt that hidden feeling… that other… at the heart of Simon and knew that Simon was more than just the ship's doctor.

Or perhaps River was imagining it all. Perhaps she was just manifesting her own thoughts and feelings and projecting her madness onto the others. Perhaps Simon was nothing more than what he seemed to be, the only family she had left in the verse.

But deep in River's very soul a voice whispered, the same voice that whispered of planets she had never seen and beings which did not exist and horrors which had no name.

The voice whispered that one day Simon would wake up... that the mask he didn't even know he was wearing would vanish... and on that day he would stop being just a doctor and be the Doctor.


End file.
